Why I’ll Be on the Roadtrip to Pando: Interfaith Legend Ed Bacon

Ed Bacon


Why I’ll Be on the Roadtrip to Pando: Interfaith Legend Ed Bacon

By   |  Aug. 7, 2017

The Reverend Ed Bacon is Rector Emeritus of All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena.  The author of 8 Habits of Love, he has been a frequent commentator on faith for national media, including various Oprah Winfrey productions, and has long worked at the forefront of peace, justice, and interfaith understanding.  

Ed shares thoughts on the ROADTRIP TO PANDO below, and what he expects.  Read more about the ROADTRIP TO PANDO here and get your own seat on the bus!

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How have you come to the place to where you’re making this ROADTRIP TO PANDO? What’s gotten you here?

I can trace the energy I have for the ROADTRIP TO PANDO back to reading John Cobb’s essay, “One More Thing Before I Go,” dated August 4, 2014. His description of Pando ignited deep within me a spiritual, theological, and intellectual clarity about how God and all that is in the universe are interconnected and interdependent. I preached repeatedly the following words:

In a Pando understanding of life, in a Pando understanding of Christianity, none of us can think of another person or of another part of creation as just a part.  Rather than “parts,” we are all “members” –- members one of another.  We are interdependent, interrelated members of the Whole, as St. Paul described the organs and limbs of the one body, who can never say, “I have no need of you.”  Pando is an illustration of Dr. King’s metaphor of our living in an inescapable network of mutuality where injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. It is what Archbishop Desmond Tutu is referring to when he invokes the power of Ubuntu: that you need other persons to be a person.

We are all called to be Wholemakers (as the evolutionary theologian, Sr. Ilia Delio puts it).  Wholemaking is the Christ –- the Power of the Whole –- spirit and matter are One. We are One. God and we are One.  God and Creation are One.  That Christpower, that Wholemaking power, was embodied by Jesus fully and perfectly.  And that humanity and divinity are in every particle member of the Cosmos.  And that marriage of humanity and divinity are in each of us and all of us.  With that God can make the whole creation new and make a new heaven and a new earth.

So my wife and I are going on this trip to deepen our understanding of the Pando phenomenon as it exists in Utah and throughout creation, to strengthen our relationship with Pando itself, and to find more effective ways to be caretakers of our planet. My expectation and intention is that in this odyssey, new epiphanies will take place and that the relationships developed on the journey will bear fruit in surprising ways.

The Rev. Ed Bacon is Interim Rector at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Atlanta, and serves on the Pando Populus Board of Directors.

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